Texas Report Says 12 Girls at Sect Ranch Were Married

According to a report released Tuesday, sexual abuse of children in a polygamist sect at the Yearning for Zion Ranch was common.

DAN FROSCH

Texas child welfare officials have concluded that a dozen under-age girls living at the ranch of a polygamist sect that was raided in April were involved in “spiritual” marriages to older men.

It also said that hundreds of children at the ranch had suffered neglect through their exposure to such improper relationships.

The findings were released Tuesday in a report by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that focused on the sect living at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

“The Yearning for Zion case is about sexual abuse of girls and children who were taught that under-age marriages are a way of life,” the report said. “It is about parents who condoned illegal under-age marriages and adults who failed to protect young girls — it has never been about religion.”

According to the report, sexual abuse of children at the ranch was common, with 12 girls, ages 12 to 15, “spiritually” married to older men. Seven of those girls had given birth to one or more children, the report found.

But a spokesman for the families at the ranch, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S., rejected the report’s conclusions and questioned its authors’ motives.

The spokesman, Willie Jessop, called the report “a desperate attempt by the officials of the Family and Protective Services Department to try and justify their barbaric actions of April 3.”

Pointing out that the courts had ordered the return of the children who had been removed from the ranch, he added, “Now they are trying to put out a report and justify it, and it doesn’t hold up.” The sect broke from the mainstream Mormon Church after it rejected polygamy in 1890 and has since found itself in public legal battles over the practice.

The report, requested by the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, detailed the controversial raid on the ranch.

After receiving a call alleging child abuse at the ranch from someone claiming to be a teenage sect member, the authorities raided the West Texas compound and removed 439 children. The raid drew national attention for weeks as the state grappled with placing the children in foster care, and the F.L.D.S. went to court to win their return.

Both the Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals ruled that the raid had been too broad, that it was not backed by evidence of sexual abuse, and that there had been no grounds to seize the children. Ultimately, all but one of the children were returned to their parents, and the authorities have investigated whether the original report of abuse was a hoax.

Since the raid, however, 12 men living at the ranch were indicted by a grand jury in Eldorado, on charges including the sexual assault of a minor and bigamy.

The report also noted that F.L.D.S. parents had since taken court-mandated classes on “the appropriate discipline and the psychosexual development of children,” and that girls had been educated on how to identify and report sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, the child welfare agency has ended cases involving 424 children after determining the children were safe from sexual abuse and neglect. Fifteen cases remain active.

Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the state agency, said the report showed why the ranch had been raided in the first place.

“We went in there to do an abuse and neglect investigation,” he said. “We didn’t go in there to remove and put kids in foster care.”

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